Welcome, dear gamers. This short tutorial will teach you how you can install and play the DayZ mod for ArmA II, the finest first person shooter about. Oh, and if you've stumbled
here by chance and wondering what DayZ might be, then it's an awesome, ultra-frightening zombie-theme game
expansion. You've been warned.

All right. Now, we will briefly go through the steps needed for you to find and install the game successfully,
without causing any damage to your original ArmA II installation. I want to help
you make everything go smoothly, so you can start enjoying DayZ and being really afraid. Ready? Follow me.

DayZ prerequisites

In order to install the mod, you will need to buy the original game first. You can get from a retail store or buy
online through Steam, which I think is the preferable option. You will need both ArmA II and the expansion pack,
Operation Arrowhead. Once the game is installed, run is once as Administrator, to sort out the registration, the
registry keys and all that.

Play withSIX

Next, install Play withSIX, a mod manager for ArmA II. This nifty tool lets
you install all kinds of mods for the game, as well as browse servers for games and chat your friends. Overall,
Play withSIX is fairly simple to use, but a bit of attention is needed when you use it the first time.

Install mod

Find DayZ in the list of available mods. Click install in the left pane. Wait a few moments until the manager
sorts the necessary downloads and install the mod. By default, DayZ will be added to your game installation
folder.

Launch the game

Time for you to have fun. You have two options here. One, you can use Play withSIX to search for servers and
launch the game. Alternatively, you can start ArmA II the standard way and then switch to DayZ mod through the
Expansions menu. You can enable or disable the mod any time you want.

Enjoy!

More fun

Original Operation Flashpoint review and the Nostalgia pack for ArmA II

Conclusion

This tutorial might be trivial for most of you, but it handles a number of small yet important issues that could
arise when trying to setup and play DayZ. First, you need the original game installed, and this includes the
BattlEye anti-cheat software. Then, you need some way to install DayZ mod, and the simplest way is by using Play
withSIX mod manager for ArmA II, which does a whole lot besides inserting zombies into your box. We also figured
out how to start game either manually or using Play withSIX, and there's the issue of running the original at
least once with Administrator privileges to avoid any problems.

All in all, you are ready to immerse yourself into the terrifying RPG world of DayZ, based on the awesome ArmA II
platform. It's all there, waiting for you, to put your intelligence, mental stamina, patience, fear, and survival
instincts to the test. If you think it's going to be like any other game, you'll be surprised.